


Cracked

by Linden



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 04:31:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7920589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linden/pseuds/Linden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was October, the season of frost and the early dark and the slow soft dying of the year, and John’s world was ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cracked

**Author's Note:**

> So _Blood_ has been delayed until Friday by Meltdowns of Public Transportation and Unexpected and Unavoidable Clusterfucks at Work (I _knew_ I shouldn't have posted a WIP! I knew it!), but, in the meantime, the fabulous [Fenix21](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21) has insisted that I post this Tumblr drabble of mine here. And since I generally do what the fabulous Fenix21 tells me to, here it be.
> 
> This is set two months after Sam left for Stanford.

**Autumn 2002**

It was October, the season of frost and the early dark and the slow soft dying of the year, and John’s world was ending, here on Yellowstone’s floor, with the wind soughing in the huge pines all around.

‘Dean, you stay awake, you hear me?’ he said, sharp, desperate, mud and needles cold beneath his knees, his son's blood hot beneath his hands. ‘Stay with me,’ he demanded, but there was blood, there was so much blood, the smell of it rich and red and iron-edged, and the only response Dean gave was a low, animal sound of pain.

He hadn’t looked. Dean hadn’t even _looked_ , Jesus, John’s clever brave beautiful boy; just stepped into the clearing with his gun trained on the wounded dog they were hunting, with never so much as a glance to his left, where he was utterly exposed, and the thing’s mate, waiting in the dark, had been on him in a heartbeat, teeth and claws alike. _Give me forty minutes and keep him talking,_ Caleb had said, six bullets later, as he’d run for the ranger’s station, for its phone, for its radio, for whatever the fuck it had that might save Dean’s life, and John’s eyes were stinging and his face was wet and he would not, could not, lose his son tonight.

‘What were you thinking?’ he whispered, not expecting a reply, but after a moment Dean answered him, rasping, voice weak.

‘… I forgot.’

He pressed harder on his son’s ribs and belly, desperate to stop the bleeding. ‘Forgot _what_?’

Dean swallowed, breathed. ‘That Sam wasn’t there,’ he managed, and John’s heart cracked, for good, in the aching hollow of his chest.


End file.
